Plagiarism
by pecfert
Summary: Between books and bribery you'd think Barbie didn't have time to fall in love - otherwise known as the time where Barbie sold a test to the professor's pet Julia, and instead of turning him in, she makes him take her on a date.


"Hey, I need you to take a test for me." She whispers, lips on his ear, hand latched onto his arm, the hood over her head scraping his hair. Barbie shivers inadvertently, and responds shakily, "For what?" as opposed to his normal, confident, _I don't give a shit _manner in which he would respond, _"Have you got the cash to back that?"_

"Professor Morgan's sociology midterm. I heard that you were quite the expert last year in sociology, and I thought you'd be able to help me out." She smiles, or rather, it's more of Mona Lisa's half lidded smirk, because let's be honest, Barbie thinks to himself, Julia Shumway knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. Her eyelashes flutter and Barbie _would _describe them as fluttering seductively, but he (as he's trying to convince himself) has better things to do than look at beautiful women who could knock him off his feet with a wink (but boy, it wouldn't hurt to think about when she's not there).

"Sure. You know I get three hundred up front and the rest upon completion?" Julia is already handing him the three Benjamin Franklin's as he finishes speaking. Her Cheshire cat grin seems to eat him up and spit him back out, and invite him back for more trouble. If this wasn't only a business deal Barbie would turn her head and kiss her right now, but he can't.

It would fuck things up royally for him. There are rules in this business - if he could even call it that - and the number one rule is: _don't ever get involved with the client_. It's a huge no-no.

"I'll see you on Tuesday, then." And with that, Julia slips off the bench, pulls down her hood, picks up her coffee, and walks away, her auburn hair swaying in the wind behind her.

* * *

><p>Barbie, when he first started selling tests, thought that the hardest part would be the memorizing of the information. Turns out, it's the part that's getting into the classroom or lecture hall or whatever. He can't be seen, has to sit in the way back - corners are extremely encouraged in his "business" - and has to keep his head down.<p>

It works something like this:

Once Barbie is in the classroom, and the client is there, they sit with him behind them. The person in front of him with quickly scribble their name on the paper - it's a sample of their handwriting, something Barbie has perfected over the course of the two years he's been doing this - and pass it back to him, while they put a bullshit name on theirs and pretend to work.

When he finishes taking the test, he'll kick the back of the person's chair, and they'll both get up. He'll slip them the paper that he took, them the paper they had with the money inside. It works surprisingly well. And if the professor asks where he's going (which they rarely do) he disguises his voice and tells them the bathroom.

* * *

><p>The dreaded day arrives a week and a half later, and it starts out horrendously.<p>

Barbie wakes up an hour late despite his alarm clock, and waking up late absolutely kills him because he prides himself on being punctual.

So as he's shoving his shirt over his head and attempting to grab his keys and coat _and _phone at the same time he trips over the hem of his jeans and falls flat on his face. The three hundred dollars that Julia gave him slide out of his coat's pocket (he should really put them in his safe, but between his everlasting love for reading Stephen King novels - he's 147 pages into _It _- and selling tests and studying for his own classes, he's got no time to shave, let alone breathe. Which is why he has the sort-of-sexy lumberjack look going on.) and a post-it falls off the back of one. How Barbie didn't notice it at first is beyond him.

(Julia was distracting him - she's five feet and six inches of wit and a sharp tongue with the looks and brains to match.)

As he picks himself up he reads it.

_Barbie,_

It reads in handwriting that is loopy and script but not quite script,

_I know that you sell tests (as I have just purchased one) for Prof. Morgan's class. And I will tell him. But on one condition, I won't. Meet me at the bench we made a deal at 2:30 (pm, obviously) and bring your wallet. _

_Julia_

He reads over it twice before groaning into his palm.

Barbie's fucked.

* * *

><p>As Barbie sits down on the bench (he gets there early and even though he's probably in for some major shit, it makes him feel better because he's making up for the morning - which doesn't even matter because he never took the test anyways) and thinks about how he's royally screwed, he takes out his phone. He isn't really feeling up to anything, so he shoots off a text to his friend Joe and tells him he won't be able to hang out like they had originally planned.<p>

_why? _Joe texts him.

_b/c i may or may not b in trouble_

_for what?_

_for getting a bad grade on my test. i failed. _This loosely translates to _I'm fucked because I got caught. I'm going to be turned in_.

_shit. good luck with dealing with the prof, colonel._ Colonel is Barbie's nickname from Joe, and even Joe doesn't know where it's from. He just called Barbie that one day, and it stuck.

_thx_

The clearing of a throat calls Barbie's attention back to the physical world.

Julia, looking stunning in the freezing cold of November with a large red-orange-umber colored plaid jacket, blue jeans, and tan work boots. Which was completed with a soft-looking white scarf that's draped around her head and shoulders. In comparison, with Barbie's old, ratty jeans and black Vans with a Journey tee-shirt hidden under a zip-up _Chester's Mill Chasers _hoodie, he looks like crap.

"Hey." She greets him, and sat down next to him, their thighs touching. Barbie smiles, and then frowns. He has to get to the point to avoid possible suspension or expulsion from the college.

"Greetings aside, let's cut to the chase, shall we? What do you want from me - aside from the obvious bribe to keep you quiet?"

"Slow down there, tiger. I don't want any money from you. Well, not in the sense you think." Julia twists her hands together, which confuses Barbie. Here was this confident woman, looking down at her hands nervously. Wasn't Julia in power position here?

"Then how do you want the money?" Barbie's brows furrow as he cocks his head and peers at her.

"With your company. On a date." Julia regains her confident composure, looking Barbie squarely in the eye. "Doesn't matter where."

"A... a date? Am I hearing you right? You're not going to turn me in so long as I take you out on a date."

"Uh, yeah. I thought I made that clear." She winks at him. Barbie thinks on this for a moment, before coming the realization, what's he got to lose?

"Yeah, I know this great diner a couple blocks away. Also, do you want your money back?"

"That would be nice, yeah. Keep a hundred though, since you're taking me out."

"Sure." Barbie finds himself grinning with ease as they stands up, and works up the courage to take her hand, to which Julia threads her fingers through his and squeezes.

* * *

><p>They wind up bonding over their love of music (classic rock, Julia argues, is the best, whereas Florence + the Machine is the best music artist in the history recording artists, Barbie insists. <em>But then why are you wearing a Journey shirt?<em> Julia asks him, poking his arm from across the table. _Because, _he tells her, _it was the only shirt that was clean. _They come to a consensus on All Time Low, with their favorite songs being off _Nothing Personal _- Barbie's _Therapy_, and Julia's _Stella_.), television shows (_Rizzoli & Isles_, they blurt out at the same time), and crappy puns (to which effect they are both reduced to tears of silent laughter). They find out about each other's childhoods and angst-ridden teenage years. It's a good, warm feeling Barbie discovers he has in his chest.

At the end of the date, it's almost six pm, and just starting to get dark out. Barbie walks Julia back to her dorm, and she awkwardly says goodbye to him before shutting her door.

He shuffles down the hallway, wondering bleakly if he'll ever feel the way he felt on that date ever again - and if a date with Julia will ever happen again.

Barbie's almost at the end of the corridor before he hears a door open and slam, feet slapping the ground, and finds an armful of Julia suddenly in his arms. She plants both of her hands on the sides of his face, and kisses him like it's the last thing she'll ever do.

"Let's do that again, sometime soon, huh?" Julia asks him, breathless. He smiles and looks at her blue-green eyes sparkling in the dim hallway lights, and says, "Why don't we just continue it?"

"Easy there, tiger. Some things are worth the wait." But Julia kisses him again and Barbie feels like he could die and be happy so long as she keeps kissing him, with her body - warm, comforting, and solid - pressed against his. In the back of his mind he thinks of rule number one, but this isn't selling tests anymore. It's romance.

She presses her hands against his chest and pecks his cheek before breaking out of his embrace and skipping down the hallway.

"Call me!" Julia shouts to him, without turning around.

"I don't have your number!" He calls back to her.

"Check your chest pocket!" The door slams as Barbie takes out a scrap of paper with her number on it with a heart at the end. Barbie has a stupid grin on his face and shoves it back in his coat pocket, and thinks, he'll definitely call her soon.

* * *

><p>Barbie lets himself into Julia's apartment, like he normally does on their date nights. She works late at the newspaper, <em>The Democrat<em>, on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. He plugs his headphones into his phone and puts on _twenty one pilots_. He picks up _It_ (he's 673 pages in now) and starts to read.

Half an hour and fifty-four pages later, Barbie doesn't hear the door unlock and close as Julia enters the apartment. She stands in the hallway for a moment, taking her coat and scarf off, hanging them on the hooks on the back of the door. She sees Barbie's army jacket on the hook and smiles. Julia takes off her shoes and walks over to him.

"Hey there, tiger." Julia coyly greets Barbie, swooping down next to him on the leather couch. She pulls out his left ear bud and kisses him on the cheek.

"Hey, Jules." Barbie looks up from his book and over at her, thick black, rectangular glasses framing his wonderful blue-grey eyes.

"I didn't know you had glasses."

"Well, I do." He takes the other earbud out of his ear and puts it and the book on the coffee table.

"I can _see _that." Julia stretches the corners of her mouth into a sort of grimace-smile.

"Oh, _sure_, mock the blind." But it's cute, so Barbie slides his hand into the hair behind her left ear and kisses her. Her lips are warm, rough with scabs (Julia started chewing her lip as a nervous habit when she was a kid and still hasn't been able to kick the habit), and pliable. His tongue slips into her mouth and one of Julia's hands comes up from the couch and settles itself on the back of his neck. Julia smiles as his tongue traces the outline of her lips and the noise that comes out her mouth makes Barbie crumble inside, and want to hear every day of his life.

"_Oh_ _my God_." Julia swings herself on top of Barbie and pushes him back with a push of her fingertips so he's laying down lengthwise on the couch. Instead of kissing him again, she maneuvers herself down in such a way that on the tiny couch, her back is pressed against the back of it and the rest of her body is nestled between that and Barbie's side. Julia lifts her left arm and wraps it around Barbie's collar bone. She buries her head in his shoulder and sighs.

"I love you." Julia says it slowly, as if testing out the weight of every word. Barbie turns his head to look down at her.

When he doesn't respond for a moment, Julia takes this as incentive to leave, and starts to rise up out of Barbie's warm embrace. His arms tighten around her and she pauses.

"Don't leave before I get to say it." Barbie blurts, suddenly looking anxious. "I love you too." The corners of his mouth turn up slightly as she lays back down, and he turns so they're both facing each other.

"I thought you weren't going to say it." Julia says.

"Well, it's not everyday a beautiful woman says she loves you." Julia laughs a little at this, kisses Barbie, and settles in closer to him.

"And it's not everyday a handsome man says he loves you." Barbie kisses her, and the warm feelings in his chest might consume him, his joy so overwhelming. Julia smiles so big and bright and tells him she loves him again. Barbie kisses her, and Julia laughs again.

"Stay tonight." Julia says.

Barbie does.

* * *

><p>Barbie didn't expect this. He didn't expect any of this, really. She caught him selling tests, and instead of turning him in, she asked him out on a date, and look at them now, two years later.<p>

Engaged, with a corgi named Horace and a grey and white tabby named Donatella.

But he did, and he felt all the better for it. He lays back in his - _their_, he corrects himself - bed. Julia pokes her head out of the bathroom, only that and part of her neck and toothbrush visible. She winks (that damn wink and Mona Lisa smile makes his heart melt) at him and he smiles at her.

Julia takes a long shower and when she's finished, she pulls a hairband off her wrist and ties up her hair in a ponytail, puts on a tee-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and slides under the covers behind Barbie and burrows her head into his shoulder.

He quite likes this, Julia laying behind him, protecting him. She does this a lot. It's done unconsciously, Barbie thinks, because Julia is used to doing the protecting and not being protected.

"Jules?" He murmurs.

"Mhm?" Julia grunts in response.

"I love you. For all that you've done. For me. For us. I just wanted you to know that." What he doesn't say, about the tests, it speaks in volumes in the quiet of their bedroom.

"I love you too." Julia holds him tighter and whispers, "I'm glad I decided to ask you to take a test for me." Barbie turns over in her arms and kisses her softly.

"Me too."


End file.
